Anyone Who's Anyone - Sloan - One Chord to Another - 1997

Ok, sorry for the lack of updates last week. It was a hectic week for me, both personally and professionally. Hopefully, the semi-regular service will resume now.

So, to resume the bitching...I was out during my lunch break and realized that I didn't have enough cash. I swung into a Duane Reade where they have Chase ATMs. An old Russian woman and her daughter were at the machine and there was one guy in front of me, so nothing too bad...except that old russian woman stayed at the machine for easily ten minutes. It was ridiculous...adn this is an ATM in a drug store...it's not like she could do balance transfers and deposits. She was taking 10 minutes (with her 30 something daughter's help) to WITHDRAWAL CASH. Seriouly, if you can't handle the complicated technology in a freaking ATM machine, it's time to move out of The Big Apple and down to Florida. You're holding the rest of us up.

The problem with multi-singer songwriter bands is frequently that not all the songwriters are on the same level of skill. Some of your writers could be John or Paul, others Ringo. I've never liked Sloan enough to try to discern which of it's 4 songwriters are which, but whichever one this is...he's the Ringo...though honestly, he's a little better than Ringo. I mean, this is no Octopus' Garden, but it's certainly much weaker than the other material on this not coincidentally Beatle-esque album. Other than the uncharacteristically abrassive sonics, this is pretty dull stuff on an otherwise decent album.

Anyone Can Play Guitar - Radiohead - Pablo Honey - 1993

Taking a half day from work today for my buddy Anand's birthday. In less than an hour I will be eating ribs, getting my drink on, and then heading out to watch Arsenal (hopefully) whip Tottenham today.

Pablo Honey continues to hold an odd place in the Radiohead Canon. It's not that it's a bad album, in fact there are probably more good songs than bad or indifferent, it's just that it can't escape what it is. Riding the wave of Nirvana (though the band will deny it) they were really the first band on the Alternative Nation bandwagon. Creep, with it's atonal touches and alienated lyrics, seemed like a perfect follow up to Smell's Like Teen Spirit (Incidentally, I saw Teen Spirit Deodarant in the deli downstairs this AM...didn't even know they still made it and can't believe they stuck with that name). The album shamelessly bleeds their Pixies influence, and it is unapologeticaly catchy (a quality that would seem like a sin to the band for a good while). But still you can't dismiss it.

First of all, it proves that a band can escape the chains of being a one hit wonder. Tons and tons of bands got consigned to the dollar bin after breaking a Nirvana clone hit, but a very select few, with Radiohead at the forefront, went on to do genuinely good work...and that has to give people hope.

Beyond that, too many of the songs, trapped in the amber of the early 90's as they are, are just enjoyable. They may not have the timeless quality of a Street Spirit or Karma Police...they are undeniably part of the Alterna-revolution, but they still have the bits of talent the band would put to better use down the road. This song is no exception. You can certainly hear Thom's smirk in full effect in the way he says "Jim Morrison" or through the general sense of derision that permeates the song. You can hear Johnny already experimenting with sound and frustrated by the limits of the guitar. And you can hear the band as a whole showing off their love of a good soundscape in the opening bits.

Sure, it's not the "Art" they would later produce, but it's still worth a listen.

Anyway You Want Me (That's How I Will Be) - Elvis Presley - The Sun Sessions - 2005 (Recorded 1953-4)

One of my ex-girlfriends had this great story about the time she visited Graceland. Apparently, there was a hard core WT Canadian family with a 7 or 8 year old son that she was stuck in the same tour group with. As the tour guide led them to the jungle room, she gestured at the giant ashtray in the center of the room and explained how Elvis had designed this himself and that the ashtray could accomodate up to 50 cigarettes at once.

The small boy was troubled by this, and asked his parents, presumably with an adorable gap toothed lisp, "Mommy, Daddy...did Elvis smoke?"

The father then took to a single knee and held his sons hand. He replied, without even a hint of a smirk, "Son, Elvis didn't smoke...he didn't drink...and he didn't do drugs, no matter what they say about him. Elvis was pure of heart and spirit. He was the king."

Parents are shameless, and people are very very strange...

Anyway You Want It - Journey - Departure - 1980

"Hey Everybody! We're all gonna get laid!"

Seriously, are there many more perfect examples of mindless, flat-out stupid, summer time bliss than "Anyway You Want It?"

And in the pantheon of just plain dumb rock lyrics you'd have to include "She Loves to Move/She Loves to Grove/She Loves the Loving Things"

Any Several Sundays - Lilys - Selected EP - 2000

As I think I've mentioned previously there is a yuppie-fied new ice cream shop/coffee shop around the corner from my apartment in my slightly ghetto neighborhood. So, I was in there Friday morning and basically saw a scene that made me miss the days when the whole block was covered in chicken bones and broken glass.

When I first arrived there was only one other customer in the store, a middle aged, probably single woman, and she was boring the tubby goth barrista with talks of the yarn festival she had attended the previous weekend and the things she'd be knitting this fall. Fortunately, she cleared out fairly quickly before I bit through my cheeks to keep from laughing at her...but she was replaced by a stern looking woman in her mid thirties and her 5-ish daughter. The little girl was adorable, all blonde curls and little pink plastic rain coat...and the girl just wanted a bagel with cream cheese. But her mother proceeded to berate her for not doing her choirs (this is a five year old here) and then told her that "papa didn't even want to let you have dress down Friday because of the way you've been acting".

This of course made me wonder what exactly the girl would be forced to wear on days of the week that were not Friday...and more to the point, what kind of sad messed up life this little girl was going to have growing up under Hester Prynne there.

The yuppiefication of my neighborhood continues to problematic.

This is another track by Lilys during their 60's psychedelia phase. Worth a listen.

Any Other Way - The Posies - Dear 23 - 1990

Met up with my buddy Rance in Park Slope for some Guinness last night. Much as I am not a fan of the coming cold weather, it is kinda nice to wear a sweater and drink some tasty stout. I mean, who the hell wants one of those things when it's 90 degrees out? But when there's a nice crisp chill in the air, there are few things better.

If you want a concise picture of what I was like as a 19 year old, you could do worse than this song. Hyperarticulate, but perpetually heartbroken. Snide and snarky, as method to mask the crippling pain of adolescent "love" (It's telling that the one line in the song that is not said sarcastically is the plaintive wail of "She Left Me Alone!!!"), but still self-aware enough to know that it's all ridiculous and to have a gallows-humor laugh at the pain.

For instance:
"She Left Me Alone/Could you believe we ran out of things to fight about
I was crushed of course/but at least I have something I can write about
I guess that I'm just so proud of my contempt/it gets paid for having nothing good to say
And even though it doesn't pay the rent/I wouldn't have it any other way."

Ahhhhh, it's all so freaking smug...

This song pretty much wraps up everything I loved about The Posies as a teenager, the clever word-play, the heart on the sleave, the pitch perfect harmonies...and it also sums up most of the things I'm embarrassed about in my youth. Kinda makes me want to go find my teenage counterpart and shake some sense into him.

Any Color You Like - Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon - 1973

So my ladyfriend and I did the diabetes walk yesterday, as we both have a fair number of family members that are affected by this. All in all, it was a quick and easy five miles and they gave us lots of snacks. The walk was basically just from the South Street Seaport up to the Brooklyn Bridge, over the bridge, around the courthouse, and back. We both took a great deal of amusement at the number of guides positioned on the other side of the bridge, basically at every corner, to make sure timid Manhattanites didn't get lost in the "horror" of downtown Brooklyn. But hands down the funniest bit of the day occured when we were walking back.

Being the impatient NYC-ers that we are, we didn't wait for the starting gun, but instead just started walking. This meant that we were coming back over the Brooklyn Bridge just as the bulk of the walkers were heading over. Standing in the middle of the observation deck at the midpoint of the bridge was a smallish camera crew. The object of what they were shooting was standing a few feet away; a perma-tanned russian girl in booty shorts and a frilly top. She was standing on top of an equipment case and attempting to lip synch through whatever bad euro-tech song she was trying to shoot a video for...however, niether her nor her crew seemed to be aware that today might have been a bad day to shoot a video on the bridge. The waves of people coming over the bridge seemed to terrify her and annoy the camera crew to no end. I didn't even make an effort to not step in front of the camera when I passed...cause seriously...fuck those guys.

Anyway, Pink Floyd doing an instrumental from Dark Side...either you like it or you don't.

Anvil - Tapes n Tapes - Walk it Off - 2008

So my boss took me and my department to lunch today at a semi-swanky Thai place in Soho. The food was good (though Thai food, much like Indian food is always the same, regardless of how nice the ambience) but the most notable things about the place where the bathrooms.

The back wall of the restaurant was a wall of mirrors in which two descrete doors were located. When you entered the single stall bathrooms you discover that the mirrors are all two way. This means that when the door is shut, the people on the outside see a mirror, but you actually see it as a window. So, even if you are consciously aware that the people out eating their lunch can't actually see you...it still subconsciously feels like you are peeing with your back to an audience. And I can't imagine being a girl, sitting down to an entire audience in front of you...

Why exactly is this a desirable feature in a bathroom?

Tapes n Tapes first album had a few moments of inspiration. They're second album nearly defines the term sophomore slump. Which is a shame, because I had high hopes for the work of producer Dave Fridmann. But yeah, this album blows.

Ants - P.O.S. - Ipecac Neat - 2004

So my girlfriend made a couple of efforts about 3-4 months into our relationship to get me into Hip Hop and made me a couple of mixes before realizing that I was never going to be 100% okay with listening to it. People will often apologize to me in cars or hanging out in parties when hip hop is playing, usually with a "I know you don't like hip hop"...which isn't actually true. I sort of like this song for instance...it's more a matter of I will never be okay being a hip hop fan.

I realize the cultural baggage is mostly my own, but I still have it. My relationship to hip hop needs to be taken in context. My first exposure to it was relatively late, and that depends on whether or not you count The Beastie Boys first album. I was a teenager at the time when MTV (back when it actually showed music) was starting to play hip hop to the exclusion of rock music. This pitted me in a sort of cultural war...Hip Hop was "winning" and I didn't much care for what that meant for the music I like. Beyond that as a person who started first and foremost as a fan of Beatle-esque pop, early 90's hip hop was the very antithesis of that. Virtually without melody, it was beats and rhymes set to clunky rhythms. It was all poise and posture, and no "Art" as my 16 year old brain defined it.

But beyond that, my reticence springs more from the racial issue...ah the dreaded racial issue. To me, where I grew up, you were belittled by both sides for listening to hip hop. You of course got your racist red neck Hoosiers who claimed you were betraying your people by listening to "Black People Music"...but what effected me more (I can always ignore redneck idiots) was the perception by the few African-Americans in my town that any white person listening to hip hop was doing so to appropriate "blackness" as a way of being cool, that as we had done with Jazz, Blues, and Rock before we were co-opting their style cause our own was too lame.

Well, now a new generation has come of age, one that exists after the culture war has been lost and the appropriation is mostly complete. Most hip hop concerts these days are too pricey for anyone but white suburbanites to go too, and it's harder edges have been replaced by cartoon thugs and jesters. The world's relationship to Hip Hop is in a different place, but I will never be able to shake the feeling that if the person next to me on the subway heard what was coming out of my iPod headphones they're thought would be "Jesus, what a fucking poser".

Anticipation - Cut City - Mammoth - 2007

Here in New York it is CMJ week. For those of you not familiar, allow me to explain. CMJ weeks is sort of the music business equivalent of sweeps week. For one week all of the music press and record label talent scouts descend down onto New York City. In order to accommodate all of the bands that will clamour for the attention of these music industry luminaries, every single bar that has anything remotely resembling a stage books bands all day long. Indie record labels book the bigger clubs in order to showcase their talent stable, and smaller bars take the unsigned masses.

This will be my 9th CMJ week since moving here. My attitude towards the festival has evolved in stages characterized thusly:
Stage 1 - "CMJ is one of the best parts about living in this city! I can't believe I get to check out all of these awesome bands"
Stage 2 - "These CMJ shows are kind of a pain in the ass...you have to deal with a truck load of tools, drinks are expensive, and the band you want to see is going to play a short set cause they gotta fit in those other bands. But I really want to see this band, so I guess I'll deal.
Stage 3 - "There is no fucking way I'm going to a CMJ show"
Stage 4 - "Fine, I'll go to a CMJ show, but I'm showing up five minutes before the band I want to see and leaving immediately after"

So, Wednesday night my roommate had talked me into going out to Southpaw and seeing his friends' band. Now Southpaw is in reasonable walking distance to our apartment and the show was at 830 so I figured it wouldn't be too bad for a cold Wednesday night's entertainment. But we showed up only to discover that there was a $20 cover. Okay...now I've been here long enough to know that everything is more expensive than you think it should be...but seriously, if you want to attract attention to your band, making people pay $20 just to walk in the door is not the way to do it. Alex and I decided the only appropriate response was "fuck that noise" and we went and got a few beers at a local bar. It was the only reasonable solution to that.

This is that band that I thought was Interpol and is not. I still like it better than Interpol.

(Antichrist Television Blues) - The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible - 2007

I spent enough time in crazy midwestern churches to know what the contemporary Christian idea of the Antichrist is...what they believe he will be. And while Joe Simpson, doesn't really fit that mold, I can't think of a better symbol (nor can Win Butler, apparently) for everything that is wrong with modern American Christianity than this despicable douchebag.

Despite loudly espousing a religion that at it's core explicitly decries the love of money as the root of all evil, he seeks nothing more than wealth. Despite extolling the virtues of "purity" he makes soft core prostitues of both of his daughters, who spent their youth defining "technical viriginity" while dropping their tits all over MTV, forciing both of them into early and at least in one case disastorous marriages to reconcile their sex drives with their belief system. Despite vocally supporting our troops, our president, and our country, he supports policies that destroy our country all for the sake of a tax break.

His first daughter, for all of her pnuematic stupidity has been rebranded time and time again to suit the needs of a market place that needed virginal teen idols, and then a model wife, and then a jilted sex pot, and now...apparently looking to fill the country shoes (and bra) of Dolly Parton.

His younger daughter attempted to be different (granted in a lame way) to step out from her sister's shadow and was eventually forced to abandon this to countless turns under the knife to become the same sort of hollow barbie doll.

And to answer the question posed by the "fictional" Mr. Simpson in Win's song...you may not be THE Antichrist, but you are certainly anti-everything that Christian values were supposed to mean before they were co-opted by the Republican party.

Anti-Anti - Snowden - Anti-Anti - 2006

I remember reading an article on Pitchfork sometime towards the end of 2006. The article itself was not about Snowden, but rather some newer Dan Deacon/Girltalk kinda album, but this record was mentioned of as an example of an album that was not particularly innovative but simply decent. I'm paraphrasing but I believe it said something like "If Snowden's Anti-Anti was your favorite album of last year then you are still stuck in the rockist era of 2002, old man!"

I have an uncle, my mother's youngest brother who is only 17 years older than me. When I was a baby, he was frequently my sitter...and later on, as the oldest child, he was frequently my "big brother". He spent his entire life with severe diabetis that eventually caused him to go blind at 27.

During my Junior High School days, when I was a weird, too-smart, and obnoxious teenager he was frequently my best friend...and one of the things he passed on to me was his love of rock music and thus my encyclopedic knowledge of 60's and 70's classic rock.

The thing is, my uncle had always been a charmer. When I watch the movie Dazed and Confused, one of the reasons to love it, is how much my uncle seems to have been almost exactly like Randy "Pink" Floyd...the smart jock that everyone liked...so going blind at 27 was crushing to him. His life, in effect, stopped. And his only friends were the members of the crazy church he attended, hoping to be cured of his blindness (Note: He didn't just go blind, he had his eyes removed), and a tubby 13 year old without a positive male influence in his life.

I was able to keep my uncle in touch with music for a bit and my brother picked up where I left off...but gradually it became unavoidable that he was stuck in his own heyday. He could take things that were close to his own experience, the obviously 70's influenced stomp of grunge, or the Pink Floyd-isness of Perfect from Now On era Built to Spill, but the glitchy post-Kid A Radiohead and it's ilk were a bridge too far.

I tried making him mixes with bands that were obviously still mired in the music he loved, the southern boogie of My Morning Jacket or the Neil Young thrust of Magnolia Electric Company, but in the end I'd return to see my uncle obsessing over the latest Allman Brothers bootleg he'd found at the Karma. Even a man without kids, without a job, who gets most of his pleasure from sitting in a garage, chain smoking, and listening to rock music, still experienced that same paralysis in time. For him, the best music would always be the music they made in 1976.

The point is, I live in fear of this...the point at which my tastes atrophy. I can already feel it happening, that my tastes have basically locked down somewhere between 2003-2005 with the sweet spot actually being 1998. I continue to like new albums, but I find that the ones I like the best are those steeped in what I'm familiar with. Too much of what is being made now is too referential, too reliant on juxtaposing pop culture I find disposable without really adding anything to the equation...or worse, too gentle and inoffensive, rife with the softness of a suburban generation, and without the nihilist urges I feel to burn to this irreperably flawed world to the ground and start from scratch.

The battle to stay young and relevant permeates our botox ridden society. It's a fight that everyone loses, but I think it's the manner in which you go down fighting that matters. It's all about the manner in which we face our own mortality, I suppose.

Anthony Boy - Chuck Berry - The Ultimate Collection - 1959

I have a little bit of a cold, so my head is too foggy to give you much in the way of coherent blog postings these days.

Not that I have much to say about this Chuck Berry nugget, other than a mild amusement at the blatant Italian stereotypes on display here and Berry's brief attempt to impersonate the accent. Otherwise, it's all pretty cut and dry.

Anyway, back to watching my lungs fill with fluid.

Anthems for Seventeen Year Old Girls - Broken Social Scene - You Forget It In People - 2002

It was probably this song that really cemented the idea that Broken Social Scene was more than a weird Canadian hippy collective. It shouldn't work on any level, all of the elements should be terrible. Emily Haines effects an appropriately girly voice to chant the sing-songy lyrics with their hypnotic rhythm, while the backing track consists almost entirely of a banjo and violin until the end when the drum and guitar kick in. Girly voice! Strings! BANJO! This sounds terrible, right?

But it's absolutely hypnotic and nearly perfect. And beyond that, without being salacious or judgemental, it actually paints a fairly realistic portrait of whatever the hell goes on in the minds of teenage girls, by simply chanting a few phrases over and over. By the time she reaches "Park that car/Drop that phone/Sleep on the floor/Dream about me" you totally get it.

Anthems for the Already Defeated - Rock Plaza Central - Are We Not Horses? - 2006

So my office held a party last night, nothing too big just a few after work cocktails on a thursday, something they say will be a weekly occurance. But as always the draw was the free booze...which was restricted to beer and wine, but hey who's complaining? Anyway when we realized that all of the other guests had left, me and two of the guys I work with decided that it was our job to finish up the remaining liquor. This took us till about 1030 and involved me drinking champaigne straight from the bottle.

I won't claim that it's been a while since I've been drunk. Hell that's about all I did in Mexico, but...it's been a while since I've gotten drunk without meaning to. I thought I was just grabbing a drink or two, taking advantage of the free booze...only to be sucker punched by the evening. When I got home, I ended up eating wings and fries from the chinese place on my corner and laughing uproariously at a Daily Show episode that I can no longer tell you a thing about. And of course the morning was something of a blur. Good times.

Anyway, several bands have been herralded as the next Neutral Milk Hotel, probably The Decemberists and The Arcade Fire most notably. And while the labels weren't completely without merit they generally meant either unconventional instrumentation and quirkiness (The Decemberist) or unbridled overpowering emotionalism (Arcade Fire)...but Rock Plaza Central is the first band I've heard that just tries the approach of ACTUALLY SOUNDING LIKE the band...of course those are big shoes to fill, and these guys aren't that good...but they do alright.

Answering Machine - The Replacements - Let It Be - 1984

Oh the answering machine...it's rather quickly become a dinosaur hasn't it? With people increasingly relying on cell phones, and those that still have land lines switching to telecarrier operated voicemail the beat up old tape recorder has basically become a thing of the past. It's kinda sad in a way. Granted voicemail is 10 billion times more useful, but don't you miss being able to screen calls live? Like hearing someone on the other end saying "Joshua, I know you're there, just pick up the goddamn phone" and being able to say "No, I'm not going to do it. You can't make me, you can go fuck yourself, Mom"

And thus passes another era.

None of that changes the unquestionable power of this song though. Granted singing "I hate your Vooooooiiiiiiiccccceeeee Maiiiiiiiillllll" wouldn't have quite the same ring, but it still doesn't change the feeling of needing to talk to someone and instead talking to a recording. How do you say "Good night", "I'm Ok", "I Love You", "I Miss You", or "I'm Lonely" to an answering machine? Voicemail may have given us a better technology, but it hasn't given us a better answer to those questions Paul...bless you're high functioning-alcoholic, constantly broken heart.

Another Way In - The Rosebuds - Life Like - 2008

Funny thing...I just bought and added this album to my iPod this AM, just in time for this song to jump to the head of the line. So this is a super fresh perspective.

Typically on any Rosebuds album Kelly Crisp will sing 2-3 songs, and this is one of them. Though she'll never be blessed with either the pipes or the chops of her husband, there is a certain charm to her deadpan vocals. Additionally, her songwriting (assuming she writes the songs she sings) has improved making her songs a bit more interesting. This song continues in the same dark vein as her songs on Night of the Furies.

I haven't listened to the whole record, but if Ivan Howard continues the shoegaze-y guitar playing he demonstrates in the second half of this song throughout the album, then that can only be a good thing.

Another The Letter - Wire - Chairs Missing - 1978

I went to go see TV on the Radio at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple last night. First of all, it was a venue I'd never been to before and it had many things to recommend it. Most importantly, it was a mere 10 minute walk from my apartment, but more to the point it was surprisingly small for a TVotR show, about the same size (and feel) as Bowery with more balcony space, but possibly less floor space. It made the show unexpectedly intimate.

There were of course downsides. They insisted on doing that annoying "buy a ticket, to buy a beer" system that they do at all ages shows here...cause god forbid a teenager get a beer. And the size and newness of the venue combined with the popularity of the band made their crowd control efforts somewhat clumsy and futile.

But all in all it was a positive experience and TVotR is a deceptively interesting live band. They are probably at their best when re-interpreting material, which is why their best songs can sometimes be disappointing. I don't want "Wolf Like Me" or "Staring at the Sun" re-interpreted...they are basically note perfect pop songs with elaborate and involved orchestration...but a less noteworthy song like "Dirtywhirl", "Young Liars" or "Love Dogs" can seem revelatory...like you didn't even know the song was that good no matter how many times you'd heard it previously....

They also welcomed a 4 piece horn section (Brooklyn's Finest Horns) onto the stage for about 2/3's of the show. Which was somewhat of a mixed blessing, on some songs they were amazing...on others they were over powering or out of place. Additionally, they blocked my view of Dave Sitek who is easily the most technically gifted member of the band. But if nothing else they were a site to see. 3 of the 4 were ordinary Brooklyn dudes, but the fourth, the tenor sax player, appeared to have been lifted straight of out The Revolution (Prince's old backing band, not, you know, some Che Guevara thing...cause that wouldn't really be out of place at all)...she wore Ray Bans, a black cocktail dress and big hair like nobody's business. My ladyfriend asked if she was Wendy or Lisa.

I've seen them twice before, in two drastically different situations...once at the beginnings of their fame in a tiny loft in South Williamsburg and once right before the release of Cookie Mountain at the Prospect Park Bandshell...but despite the cool points for the first show (and the way it turned out) the smallish midsize club is definitely the way to go with these guys.

Anyway, this is Wire, which really has nothing to do with TVotR...but I don't have one of their TVotR's songs coming up, and this song is only 1:06 long...what the hell was I supposed to talk about?

Another Sunny Day - Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit - 2006

Ahhh, my iPod just went gay all the sudden. I generally found The Life Pursuit to be the most interesting album B&S put out since Tigermilk, and that it actually possessed some energy, rather than just coasting on Stuart Murdoch's considerable charm and word play.

But this song is one of the throw backs that wouldn't have seemed out of place on the lackluster Fold Your Hands or Dear Catastrophe Waitress...

Meh

Another Step Away - A Place To Bury Strangers - A Place To Bury Strangers - 2007

Man was this album a breath of fresh air last year. I fear a world in which all of the good melodic music that's produced is the product of Sufjan like gentility. A world in which sweet melodies aren't covered in walls of noise to make their delicacy more palatable, a world in which raw anger is replaced by a blissed out numbness, and naked, earnest emotion is preferred to dense confusion and ambiguous dread...this is the fear that keeps me up at night.

But then a band like APTBS comes along and sounds as if they might want to tear the world down to it's foundations, and my faith in humanity is restored.

Keep rocking you W-burg guitar nerds, you're the only hope we got...

Another Saturday Night - Sam Cooke - Single - 1963

So while my trip to Mexico was largely a success, the trip home was, by every definition of the word, a total clusterfuck. Short of missing our flight or being involved in a plane crash, pretty much everything that could go wrong did.

First we woke up to check out of the hotel and were actually a bit ahead of schedule. The first two nights of the cabana had been paid for in advance, so we only needed to settle up for the final night. This should have occured to me but, due to the bargin basement quality of our cabana (a trait I have to admit, we did chose ourselves) they didn't take cards. So Anne and I had to scrounge togther most of our dollars and pesos to pay for the last night on the spot...leaving us with only enough pesos to buy some coffee for the road.

Then during the drive to Cancun we a pretty big thunderstorm that basically forced me to drive at about 40 miles per hour, basically killing our spare time. To make matters worse, the airport exit to Cancun is not very clearly marked, so we drove right by it in the rain and drove around the town for another half an hour. We finally found it and returned the rental car, making it to the departures desk with a slim 25 minutes till boarding. And of course this is where we realized that I had no idea where my immigration forms were.

This required me to run down the hall to the immigration office and fill out a form and then return to the departures desk (the oddest thing is there was absolutely no vital information on this form...at least nothing they couldn't just pull off my plane ticket...it was a form for the sake of having a form). At the security line, we were of course hassled about the bottle of water my girlfriend had neglected to remove from her bag. Finally, we made it to the plane.

But then...Any time I have flown internationally it has been to Europe...which meant that my stop in the USA was JFK and then straight home. I had never transfered in an domestic airport that wasn't my final destination from an international flight. Apparently, you have to gather up your bags, go through customs and then re-check in. So, we stood at the customs baggage claim and waited for my bag...and waited...and waited...and waited.

Now dear readers, it is entirely possible that in packing up my bag I had "forgotten" not to throw away a few of the cigars that I had picked up in Mexico that may or may not have originated in a communist dictatorship in the Carribean. So, I'm standing in customs trying not to break into a blind panic...but I also figure if I was actually in trouble I would be approached by customs, not forced to stand there and wonder where the hell my bag was. So, I went to the baggage services dude to find out what the deal was. This being Miami, he didn't speak English so well...but I managed to determine that we should just catch our connecting flight and my bag would be sent to NYC.

So we go back through security, passing several ATM's on the way (remember that we have no cash). My girlfriend asks if we should use one, but I say that we should wait till we're on the other side of security so we don't miss our flight. We get done with security and make our way to the gate. I then leave my girl with the bags to get money. I hadn't eaten all day and it was now 3PM. I find out that there is only one ATM in the entire concourse and that it is currently out of service.

Seriously, I realize I come across as a spoiled NYC-er here...but what kind of backwards ass airport only has one ATM in the entire concourse? Even bumble fuck Indianapolis has one every few gates or so. Miami fucking sucks and I don't care who hears me say it!

Now, in addition to everything else, my apartment keys are in my checked bag as well. So, I go to call my roommate to make sure he'll be home to let me in only to discover that, despite being off all weekend, my cell phone is dead. And the charger...that's right...in the bag.

But I finally made it home about 830 that night, grabbed the spare keys and used my roommates phone charger, got myself a big greasy cheeseburger and fries and caught up on the news. My bag showed up (with contraband intact) about 2 the following day...so in the end all was well, but damn did that day suck.

Anyway, this is the incomparable Sam Cooke with one of his many, many fine songs sounding sad and lonely on a Saturday night.

Another Saturday Night - Cat Stevens - Single - 1974

While Sam Cooke's original ached with the loneliness (or horniness, depending on how you read it) of a man in a strange place with no company, Cat Stevens makes the odd choice of making the song sound like it is taking place in a Mexican cantina. There is something sort of disingenous about hearing the phrase "I'm in an awful way" song over and over to the sound of a mariachi trumpet.

Another Planet - The Notwist - Shirk - 1998

Because I didn't travel much until I was in my mid to late twenties, I certainly had a lot of preconceived notions about what other countries would be like. I remember having a mindset (which many of my midwestern friends that still have never left the country seem to have adopted) that being abroad is a lot like being on another planet, but the truth of the matter is that it isn't that different. Sure, weather, topography, language, and culture might be somewhat different...but fundamental human nature does not change...niether about yourself, nor those you encounter.

This is why I find xenophobia so frustrating. The world is sometimes (or often) an indifferent place...but it's rarely as malicious as some would have you believe. But most people that I've met just want the same things I want. They want comfort and respect. They want entertainment and purpose. They want to be surrounded by those that love them and usually they don't wish strangers any ill. Perhaps, I am a bit deluded, living in a place where I'm constantly surrounded by tourists from all over the world...and perhaps I'm just spouting hippy nonesense of the "can't we all just get along" variety...but still, I don't find that...even in places I haven't had the best of times...that people are anything but decent.

But then I've never been to Afghanistan either.

I usually joke that The Notwist are just German Radiohead...but full credit to the Tuetonic gentlemen here...this album came out a full two years before Kid A and certainly shows all of the electronica meets melodic rock tendancies that the boys from Oxford would later make safe for the Luddite indie rock world.

Another Person - Jay Reatard - Night of Broken Glass - 2007

Let me tell you something about Mexico that I did not expect. It's really, really fucking hot. Sure, you think to yourself...haven't you ever seen a movie set in Mexico? But come on, it's October...I figured it would be hot during the day (perfect for the beach) and then cool off at night for some pleasant seaside sleeping.

No, this does not happen...despite being one of the most beautiful places I've ever been too, with pristine beaches and gorgeous skies...I couldn't help spending a little bit of my trip cranky, cause I just wasn't sleeping at night...cause it was just so muggy.

On our second day we took a hike to the maya ruins of Tulum, which are amazing...but within less than an hour both my lady friend and myself were covered in sweat, dehydrated and slightly confused. And of course, cause of the "don't drink the water thing" an ice cold glass of water or a coke were no where to be found. So you drink beer, even if you don't want it...cause it's the only cold thing they got.

All in all, it was a lovely trip...but when I got home, I drank a giant glass of water, straight from the tap...and then went to sleep in my own bed with the windows all the way open so that I could enjoy the cool of an NYC Autumn.

Jay Reatard doing his Devo meets Question Mark and the Mysterians thing. Not bad, but there are songs of his I prefer to this.

Another One Goes By - The Walkmen - A Hundred Miles Off - 2006

Here's The Walkmen covering that Mazarin song. Hamilton Leithauser's creakier voice gives the song a somewhat more rough-and-tumble feel than the original, but otherwise it's pretty much a dead on cover.

Another One Goes By - Mazarin - We're Already There - 2005

Sorry if updates are even laxer than usual this week. I leave for a little vacation to Mexico Thursday morning, so my mind is most definitely elsewhere. Anyway...

It seems appropriate that I'd be writing about this song today anyway. It's the first really autumnal day we've had this season, and this song just screams fall. Without really sounding in anyway like R.E.M.'s Reckoning it has the same sense of turning leaves and breezes with a hint of frost in them.

I suppose it's fair to say that the fall is the most contemplative of seasons. With the end of the shining summer, and the inevitable approach of cold and gray winter, it's easy to think of the impermenance of everything. Of human life, obviously, but somewhat less morosely of any good thing. From the way that every milkshake has a last sip, to the way that the passion of young love eventually mellows into the warm affection and concern of a relationship, Autumn speaks to both the passing of time, and to sucking the last bit of sweetness from the well.

I've listened to the song over and over to try to determine what it is about the song (which if I haven't made it perfectly clear, I think is damn near perfect) that makes it seem so fall-like. Perhaps it's the general sad yet laid back vibe, or perhaps he combination of the piano and the strummed dulcimer also work well to create the sense of a cold wind through dying leaves, or Quintin Stotzfus' Brian Wilson-esque vocals. All in all, it's a really wonderful construction.

Another One Bites The Dust - Queen - The Game - 1980

Sure, Freddy Mercury is gay as all hell. And this song is basically funk. And it was a favorite of Michael Jackson...but I still kinda like it. Honestly, it's Mercury's vocal that make the song totally work. He doesn't croon or do his usual theatrical melisima shit. He just sings the song with a kind of viciousness, particularly after the first chorus, where he nearly screams. It's a kind of staccato vocal assualt that would be mimiced by countless others down the line. 90's industrial of the NIN stripe would use it a lot. Thom Yorke, an embarrassed but avid Queen fan, apes it in soft/loud songs like My Iron Lung and the second half of 2+2=5. Cobain also was a noted Queen fan, though it would be hard to think of two more different male vocalists, so it's sorta hard to tell where his influence lies...easier to look to Brian May for that.

Anyway....

Another Morning Stoner - And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead - Source Tags and Codes - 2002

In the long and sordid history of wake-and-bakes the story that stands out the most is probably about my ex-roommates girlfriend...who is now his wife. I lived out on the Bed-Stuy/East Williamsburg border in a desolate little block where they brought the chinatown buses at night to wash down.

Anyway, my roommate was hanging out with this social circle that had a regular friday night hang out at a bar in the village. He'd frequently come home late from this, and often with a friend to crash on our couch...but one showed up more than others. When she was first introduced to me, it was as a lesbian who was going through a particularly bad break up...as such she had moved back in with her folks in Long Island, but would crash on our couch when she had a late night in the city.

So it was sort of a ritual over the next few months for me to wake up and come out to the living room to find her on our couch on a saturday morning smoking up. Eventually, she stopped crashing on the couch and started crashing in my roommates bed, which eventually became more frequent than Friday nights. But our saturday morning ritual was pretty firmly in place. I'd go to Duncan Donuts (well, actually to the knock off Dunkin Donuts in our hood called the Donut Connection, which was just an abandoned Dunkin Donuts that had been reopened indepenedently...also, remember in your 20's when donuts for breakfast was totally acceptable...those were the days)...anyway...I'd go to the Donut Connection and come back with donuts and coffee for all of us and she'd be there with the bong.

It's so odd the way NYC forces you to form such unconventional families...but it's also one of the cities great charms. I type this as I head out to a dinner with one of my current unconventional families...a fact that makes me happy indeed.

Also, remember how excited everyone was when this album came out? Shame that it's the only trick Trail of the Dead had in their play book.